DPTI wrote:The Torrens Rail Junction is where the interstate mainline freight railway crosses the Outer Harbor metropolitan passenger railway, located in the Park Lands opposite Renewal SA’s Bowden Urban Village development. The existing at-grade rail junction poses a productivity constraint to the strategically important Adelaide to Melbourne rail freight line, with freight trains forced to give way to Outer Harbor passenger trains at the junction.

This project will grade separate the rail corridors by lowering the Outer Harbor rail corridor below both the interstate rail corridor and the adjacent Inner Ring Route (Park Terrace). The lowered rail corridor will extend for a length of approximately 1.4 kilometres.

Importantly, this project will improve the productivity of the national rail freight network by enabling 1800-metre freight trains – about 20-percent longer than the current configuration – to operate between Adelaide and Melbourne.

Traffic delays at a number of existing rail crossings in the area will be eliminated or reduced. The existing rail crossings will be grade separated at Park Terrace and Gibson Street; and closed at East Street (adjacent to the Bowden Urban Village development). The project will also allow freight trains to safely maintain speed through the Torrens Road and Hawker Street level crossings, reducing delays for on the road network.

The existing Bowden rail station will be relocated southeast of Gibson Street to provide improved connectivity with the Bowden Urban Village, the Entertainment Centre, Adelaide Park Lands, local businesses and sporting clubs. A new shared path for pedestrians and cyclists will run adjacent and across the rail corridor, linking to the rail station, Bowden Urban Village and Adelaide Park Lands (via a dedicated shared path under Park Terrace).

rubberman wrote:This is a lot of money to spend. Is there a real problem with congestion at this point?

The money spent could do a lot of other things.

Not only is there a big problem with conjestion of the trains, it flows on to conjestion of the roads. Freight trains crossing the OH metro line have to give way to metro trains. It is actually a big deal to stop a freight train hundreds of metres long and start it moving again. Added to that, sometimes a stopped freight train is blocking the Torrens road junction hiding up traffic in every direction. The OH line also makes turning right from port road to park terrace problematic, as it is possible to wait up to 8 minutes or so to get thru depending on the light sequence, or if there are trains running in either direction minutes apart. This corner is a clusterfuck of issues, and Tis project will resolve multiple problems at multiple intersections.

rubberman wrote:This is a lot of money to spend. Is there a real problem with congestion at this point?

The money spent could do a lot of other things.

There is always something else to spend money on.

Yep, agree 100%.

And there's never enough money to spend on things people want. Hence the question: Is this the best investment of the money, or is there something else that would give a better bang for the buck?

I have no doubt whatsoever that it will provide benefits, but could that same money be spent better elsewhere? Or is that our top priority? Accelerating South Road upgrades, trams, electrification of Gawler line? Higher or lower priority?

I have no fixed opinion, if there's nothing better to spend the money on, sounds good to go. However, if there's higher priority stuff to do, let's do that instead.

The thing is that the federal government has given us money for this project. That means it it must be spent on this project.

This project will have national benefits as trains coming from Sydney, Darwin and Perth will all enjoy fuel use reductions. There will be benefits to the ring route, and more trains can run on the Outer Habor/Grange Lines, which can go across the intersection faster as there are no tracks to cross.

Regarding the trench, it is not possible to make this a tunnel at this stage as diesel trains will be using the trench. One day hopefully it will be covered when the line is electrified, but for now it will remain a trench.